


The Cat Came Back Biting

by ShyZombie



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Introspection, It's only a little, Not sure what counts as graphic violence, Wee Doctor Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:34:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26619784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShyZombie/pseuds/ShyZombie
Summary: "In front of the fireplace. Onto the bricks. His head smashed. His curls flew."-A fanfic of a fanfic, specifically, of AmericanJedi's 'Wee Doctor'.-
Kudos: 1





	The Cat Came Back Biting

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I am not the author of 'Wee Doctor' or associated with them in any way.
> 
> "Wee Doctor" link:  
> https://archiveofourown.org/series/24294
> 
> This fic is set within AmericanJedi’s 'Wee Doctor' universe. Though 'Wee Doctor' is a Sherlock fanfiction, it contains many original characters that you will not recognize if you haven’t read that first. 
> 
> I essentially wrote this because I was reading 'Wee Doctor' to a friend, and writing proved a good exercise to get me into character for emotionally charged scenes. I wanted to try imagining, specifically, the circumstances of how Bad Davey Killed his father based on what we knew.

One smack and he was down.

It wasn't anything he said. It was something I said, something stupid. And Roost, sweet Roost, had to add something to the end of it.

The crunch of bird bone. The bruises of elbow points against stone floor, too cold. Roost who didn't fight, who had no weight to throw back. Who just curled himself into a littler ball.

In front of the fireplace. Onto the bricks. His head smashed. His curls flew.

His small head full of china plate hopes and dreams hit with a crack. It was a sick sound.

I grabbed the poker before I knew I had it. I struck out the crack with more noise. I needed noise to smother the little cries, barely breaths, not even whimpers.

Roost curled around the red, the red that was in his hair, the purple-red dug into his skin in grooves.

I brought the poker down on the old man’s head as if pain could write out pain. I brought it on his head and after the first time I didn't stop. I stood over him on the ground and breathed in blood.

I dropped the poker, slick. Metal cold, rough, mottled. Fingers hurt. Didn't feel it. Fingers were numb.

I scraped my knees landing on them. Grabbed Roost in an armful like those china pieces.

If mummy heard the noise, if she acknowledged what it meant, she didn't come.

Said it was a break in when they came asking. Was grateful he was gone.

There was quiet acknowledgement there later, maybe respect. But she didn't help us wash. We washed ourselves. Mostly I washed. I put Roost in the tub with his clothes on.

There was nothing more wrong with him than before, except maybe those dreams that slipped down the drain. Like peels of white skin.

Still, that memory stayed with me. That utter helplessness. That MY FAULT moment. A moment of uncertainty where Roost lay broken, unfixable, the Schrodinger’s cat, dead and alive, dead and alive, until I made certain Schrodinger was dead. Freed that cat. Tried to make him cough up the poison. 

Wasn't the best at it. Only knew how to shake loose poison with more blood.

He didn't remember my part in it. The head thing. Or so he said, or so I thought, but he was always a dammed better liar than people believed, that boy.

He was determined to throw himself into danger, into more of those whys. He had this desperate need to know, why, why, why people like my father who would have killed him and why people like me who could kill their father. He was too stupidly kind to understand. So he threw himself into danger to get the answers. So I tried to protect him.

Only then there was Grendel and his gun and the cat came back. That Schrodinger’s cat, and this time I made the wrong choice. This time my fears came to life and flesh and he became my fears.

And I tried to do something different, but I always did something different wrong. Until you came along, Johnny, and made him real. Until you dragged him to me and he named his bones like there were real things inside him and he named my bones like he could know me by knowing the names under my skin.

Roost had found his answer, and maybe I thought it was stupid, but it was an answer you gave him, and that's all that mattered. 

I thought I failed again with the Cubbits. I thought I could act out everything right like the real people do and it would still turn out wrong. I thought my hands were just built that way, or maybe life was. That some hands were just built to hold tight to lead pipes and guns until they forgot the shape of anything else, until they couldn’t hold soft enough not to strangle it.

You tried to protect me anyway. I still wonder about that.

You still haven’t told me what the point of caring about people is. But when I was desperate and bleeding my lungs out I came to you, and well, maybe that counts for something. I'll probably bleed on you again and maybe bleed you a bit too but then you'll scold me and that makes me feel like you love me. And then I just don't know what to do.

Sometimes I don't think reality has space for people like me, Johnny. People who don't exist. Who chafe and scrape against the air. Sometimes I don't think Roost was meant to be here either.

Sometimes I want to make him stop flickering at the edge of things. When it sounds like his head is creaking again. I don't think it's safe for me to love. 

But you love me, don't you, and that's something I don't understand anymore than Roost understands why people don't. But then we're all our own creatures in our own cages. You're love isn't the worst I could do. It fixed roost, or fixed me with Roost. So maybe I’ll keep inside it for now. It’s big enough to stretch in. Figure it needs to be big to hold something like me.

Funny, how big you got when I wasn't looking.


End file.
